


our earthly days

by isoladea



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Post-Episode 5, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoladea/pseuds/isoladea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On days when Rin felt like allowing himself to be earth-bound, he picked up Makoto's call.</p><p>(It took eleven voice mails — “Hello, Rin? It’s me, Makoto.” — and Makoto’s near-drowning in the infamous training camp fiasco for Rin to relent: to pick up the call and sigh, yes, he’d go and meet Makoto for lunch, and yes, Makoto’s paying.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	our earthly days

**Author's Note:**

> For isumiilde.
> 
> Prompt: MakoRin.

It took eleven voice mails — “Hello, Rin? It’s me, Makoto.” — and Makoto’s near-drowning in the infamous training camp fiasco for Rin to relent: to pick up the call and sigh, _yes_ , he’d go and meet Makoto for lunch, and _yes_ , Makoto’s paying.

Stabbing the air between them with his slice of pizza, Rin growled, “This does _not_ mean I’m going to swim with you guys.”

Makoto lowered his gaze to his plate and, for a moment, Rin felt a surge of bitter satisfaction — so Makoto _was_ that naïve after all.  But when Makoto looked up, there was a soft smile that positively reeked of laughter on his lips.  The smile was less kind and more patronising — _indulgent_ , Rin’s mind supplied in incredulous fury — honed from years and years of smiling at the twins.

“But,” Makoto said, and there was definitely laughter in his tone, “but we’re not swimming.  Rin.”

It was the way Makoto said his name — casual and fond and affectionate, as if everything was still chummy between them — that made Rin chomp down on his pizza, trying not to grind his teeth and lash out at _any_ thing, _every_ thing.  Only after he had torn through three slices did he realise that the pizza was all pepperoni, and that the pizza was _good_.  He glanced at Makoto, who was slowly nibbling his second slice in contentment, and tried to remember what Makoto’s preferred pizza toppings were.

“You haven’t changed,” Rin remarked.  Suddenly he felt a mild queasiness taking over him.  “Haven’t changed _at all_.  You still don’t order your own pizza.”

Makoto’s eyebrows drew together.  “Well, I certainly ordered this pizza myself,” he drily said, gesturing at their shared meal.  “You just sat there — glaring at the nice waitress,” he added, with an apologetic shrug, as if Rin’s behaviour was his fault.

“It’s pepperoni,” Rin said, “and pepperoni is _my_ pizza —”

“I’m sure a lot of pepperoni-lovers would object to that…”

Rin glared at him, and the rest of Makoto’s words seemed to wither away at the base of his throat.  “The point is: you ordered this pizza for _me_.”

Makoto’s eyes widened slightly, and Rin realised, belatedly, that the _notion_ of Makoto ordering pizza to anything but his companion’s preferences never even set foot on — much less crossed — his mind.  Chewing the pepperoni, Makoto seemed to consider Rin’s words.  “Well,” he began, tentatively, “well, you like meat, so it’s normal to like pepperoni on your pizza.”  When that did nothing to lessen Rin’s frown, he readjusted his course: “Is this about me? I — look, I really don’t have any preferred topping.  Besides, pepperoni is nice.”

“Are you a fucking saint?” Rin mumbled under his breath, and Makoto had to have heard him, because he laughed and said, “Are we still talking about pizza?”

  

They finished the pizza, with Rin practically forcing the last slice onto Makoto.  The name “Haru” dared to cross neither of their lips.

 

Shortly before 3 p.m., they exited to a hothouse afternoon that had Rin tugging on the collar of his polo shirt in no time.  He was about to walk away with a wave of goodbye when Makoto’s large hand circled his wrist, barely touching his skin.

“I’ll take you back,” he said.  He sounded as if he was trying to smile, but the sun was behind him and all Rin could see were the curtain-like shadows quietly falling across his face.  “To your dorm.  If that’s all right.  Rin.”

Pulling his hand away, Rin replied, “I need to stop by the convenience store.”

 

Rin folded his backpack — he had emptied it for today’s scheduled grocery shopping — into the basket of Makoto’s bicycle, aware of Makoto observing his every movement.  He wanted to snap, _why are you looking at me like that_ , but doubted it would yield any answers.  Makoto was about as transparent as a block of ice, the see-through crystalline layers suddenly giving way to an opaque core.  With Makoto, there was a defensive wall buried within, so inconspicuous that one could walk around it without realising its existence. 

He wanted to look at Makoto’s expression, but the sun was in his eyes.  So he stalked to the backseat and, in a languid motion, slung a long leg over, straddling the seat backwards.  The back of his head rested warmly against Makoto’s back, and he could not help but wonder at how he could feel Makoto smiling through all those back muscles.

With one foot firmly on the ground, Makoto quietly asked, “Okay?”

Rin closed his eyes, swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat.  “Okay.”  There was a precarious moment between Makoto’s foot finding the pedal and the actual start of pedalling.  For an exhalation, the two of them were suspended in the air, prepared to tilt in any way gravity might decree, possessing the uncertainty of a tossed coin.  Then the pedals turned; the chains ran.  Suddenly, they were sailing through the afternoon city.

“This feels nostalgic,” Makoto remarked on a left turn.  Rin gripped onto his seat tighter and did not reply.

Not that Rin could see Makoto’s expression, but if Makoto pedalled faster, stronger, with his tendons taut and his muscles rippling, as they coasted along the shoreline, it did not matter at all to Rin.

  

A carton of milk, 1.5 litre of sports drink, and a pack of detergent later, Rin found himself taking out a bag of twin popsicles from the store’s freezer.

“Oh,” Makoto said, and he had the most unreadable expression on his face that Rin was sorely tempted to return the pops and forget he ever dared to take them out.  However, as quickly, something shifted within Makoto’s eyes; he immediately relaxed and suggested, “Why don’t we get the Suika?”

Rin raised an eyebrow.  “But you like the pops.”  The _you are always eating it with Haru_ went unsaid but not unheard.

“Actually,” Makoto said in a low, soft voice, “not particularly.  It’s just the easiest to share.”  That was the closest he would get to mentioning Haru that day.  With a broad smile, he added, “Besides, don’t you really, really like the Suika?”

“Yeah,” Rin sighed, and it was almost a gesture of surrender.  “Here we go again,” he muttered, reaching for the Suika.

“I like the Suika,” Makoto piped up.  He sounded as if he was holding in laughter.  Again.

Rin resisted the urge to punch him in the face and strode to the cashier instead.

  

They were walking down the streets — Makoto rolling his bicycle and Rin strolling next to him — in companionable, sticky Suika-sweet silence when Rin gave in and said, in a rough voice that sounded like it had gone unused for years, “I have changed, haven’t I.”

“Mm,” Makoto hummed, non-committal.  Finally, he decided, “Not really.”  He bumped his Suika-holding fist with Rin’s own syrup-drizzled knuckles.

“What the hell was that supposed to mean?” Rin said, almost hostile, before his own smile overtook him and cracked the lonely corners of his lips.

Makoto’s eyes were definitely watching him.  “You’re still Rin,” he replied, slowly, as if allowing the words to sink in, “and if anybody tells you otherwise, you can — I don’t know — bite their heads off.  Although it isn’t very nice.” When Rin bared his teeth, he quickly, regretfully amended, “Please don’t bite anyone’s head off.”

“ — I have to win.”  It felt like a confession, one that would absolve exactly nothing.

Still, Makoto nodded his head solemnly.  When he turned towards Rin, his eyes were large and pleading.  Rin did not understand until Makoto said, “You know, I think you could do with days without swimming.”  Rin’s first impulse was anger — indignant anger — and then he read the words on Makoto’s face: _please do not get me wrong, but_.

Biting into his Suika instead, he grunted and said, “You’re talking about today.” 

“And — and maybe some time next week,” Makoto said softly.  His hope rang so loud and clear that it _almost_ hurt Rin, _almost_ put his teeth on edge.  “Or the week after.”

They met a trashcan, and Makoto threw away his ice cream stick.  Rin, still savouring his ice cream, clambered back onto the bicycle, hanging on one-handed and compensating by leaning further into Makoto’s back.

  

In front of the Samezuka dormitory, Makoto leaned against his bicycle and said, almost conversationally, “So.  We’ll see you in the prefectural tournament.”

Adjusting the strap of his now heavy backpack, Rin glanced up sharply at him before tersely replying, “Yeah.”  He was on the edge of walking away, putting his long legs to use to get away from Makoto, when Makoto spoke again, in the afternoon’s hopeful tone:

“Maybe I’ll see you next week? Or next next week? Rin?”

 _‘It’s the way he says my name,’_ thought Rin exasperatedly.  Outwardly, he said, “Yeah, yeah.  Just — just drop me a voice mail.  Or call.  Or something.”

He turned, raised his hand in goodbye, and — stopped dead in his tracks.  He could feel Makoto’s smile on his back. 

Turning so fast that his backpack slammed into his side painfully, he managed to say, “Makoto.  I think — ” Then the words left him, and he had to close his eyes against the sun.

When he blinked them open again, Makoto was still smiling patiently before him.  Finally, he decided on: “Take care.”  He meant it, and he wanted Makoto to mean it, too.

Makoto’s smile dropped a notch; it looked like a door — no, a hatch — unlocking somewhere deep within.  “Ah,” he chuckled sheepishly.  “I’ll…try.”

Rin shrugged: _good enough for now_.  He began to walk away, for real this time.  When Makoto called out to him, “I’ll call!”, he replied without looking back, “You better.”

There was still time, Rin told himself.  Time: next week, or next next week.

_I think you’re the bravest man I’ve ever known._

**Author's Note:**

> Writing MakoRin is hellishly hard. (Personally, I find Haruka's PoV the easiest to assume so far.) If you have any constructive criticisms concerning the stylistic direction of this piece and/or the characterisation, please do not hesitate to contact me!


End file.
